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The grace of forgiving

When forgiveness seems an impossible task, we can let God’s love dispel hurt, redeem wrongs, and impel peace, grace, and even “sweet reuniting,” as this poem conveys.

  • By Elizabeth Mata
Christian Science Perspective audio edition
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Forgiving her sat like a rock too
heavy to move. Bleary with fitful
mental mutterings of “She owes me
an explanation,” I turned away from
this earthly haze to the perfect
clarity of divine Love, God.

At once my praying thought stirred
with an upwelling as noiseless as
dawn’s light: “And forgive us our
debts, as we forgive our debtors.”*

Then came, “And Love is reflected
 in love;...”**

Instantly, it crystallized that Love
owes nothing for it has all, its
ever-presence teeming with good,
no voids to fill. We are the children
– reflection – of Love, and our divine
Parent streams to us all grace, joy,
mercy – unspent. As we drink in
our spiritual nature, free hearts brim
to overflow. All hurt spills out, no
room; its sham power and presence
wash away in the love of Love.

It was as though I tossed the rock
like a pebble. Thought now released,
gracious forgiveness swept in peace.
Even sweet reuniting came.

*Matthew 6:12
**Mary Baker Eddy, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” p. 17

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Mark Sappenfield
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